Re: [Syllable-kernel] Good artists borrow, great artists steal!

[Mark W. <ma...@cl...>]

> One question:  is there any reason, licensing or otherwise, for us not
> to also steal high-quality code from FreeBSD?

Bear in mind there are actually two BSD licenses...

> The BSD's already use 
> GNU-licensed code 

Yes but only in userspace.

> and I believe the Linux kernel has used BSD-licensed 
> code as well. 

Yes, that's true, although I haven't seen large amounts of BSD code around the 
kernel.

> I'm not aware of any legal issues involved in intermixing 
> the two

The original license had 4 clauses.  It is "free" but it is not compatible 
with GPLv2 because there is an advertising clause.  See 
http://www.fsf.org/licenses/info/BSD_4Clause.html

After some time, Berkeley changed all the code they had copyright to the 3 
clause license, dropping the advertising clause.  See 
http://www.fsf.org/licenses/info/BSD_3Clause.html

There is still other 4 clause licensed code in various parts of the BSD 
kernel, however.  Off the top of my head, the USB stack code is 4 clause 
licensed, there are probably other bits.

> Anything else?

It seems like a good idea to pick and choose whatever is relevant from other 
projects.  That's a big OSS win, after all ;-)

Cheers,
Mark